You know, I'm usually here on Saturday morning and you are not.  Saturdays are good days here because there is usually a lot going on and I get to watch, snap a few pictures, sit at my desk and reflect. 

 

Here's a look at Saturday - before you get here.

 

The cooks need to make all sorts of new things for today's lunch visitors.  The shopsters organize, primp, display, and make it all ready for you.  Soups are hot, the day's sandwich ingredients are prepped and all quietly gets readied.

 

Give us a call by noon and we'll have your dinners ready by 3. You can come until 7.

 

828-252-1500

 

Monday, October 31

Chicken Croquettes with Applesauce 7.95

 

Tuesday, November 1

Sherry, Honey + Thyme Roasted Chicken w/Saffron Rice 7.95 (GF)

 

Wednesday, November 2

Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Pear Chutney 9.50

 

Thursday, November 3

Swedish Meatballs with Mashed Potatoes 7.50

 

Friday, November 4

Here is this week's casserole:

 

Beef Stew with Fall Vegetables

Full: 60.95  Half: 30

 

And this week's Lasagna is: 

Spinach Lover’s Lasagna

Full: 38  Half: 19

 

The fall is rich with dark greens.  We get fall braising mixes from our farmers which, when tiny, we sneak into our salads.  The teenage greens get tossed in olive oil and a bit of garlic.  The more mature greens get slowly braised, added to rustic soups, or get plunked on top of the day's Gallettes (Martha's "hand pies.")

 

Marty meticulously readies the various doughs into logs that will get portioned into our cookies.  He makes muffins, scones, cakes, pies, and a whole bunch of other things too.

 

Come join the folks from Firefly Farms and enjoy a dinner made up of all sorts of foods raised or grown by them. Brendan has come up with a wonderful, Rustic French menu. We’ll serve family-style, so bring friends. And we’ll have time for Scott to tell about the farm, about the wind-powered energy they generate, and about why they do what they do.

 

Here’s the menu:

 

At the start:

 

Pickled Firefly Farms’ Vegetables

 

Hidalgo Pepper Jelly with Local Cheese

 

Devon Beef Liver Paté

 

The Salad:

Fall Lettuces with Apples, Radishes and a Pickled Shallot Vinaigrette

 

The Dinner: “Pot-au-Feu”

A rustic French meal with Red Devon Beef, Cabbage, Charred Radicchio and Marrow Toast with Sauce Alsacienne

 

Nicola Potato Gnocchi with Broccoli Rabb, Lemon, and Garlic

 

The Dessert:

 

Candy Roaster Squash and Caramelized Apple Tart

 

The price is 45.00 per person (+tax)

Please add 12.00 if you’d like wine and/or beer

 

Yes – it is Thanksgiving time. As we always do, we’ll make these dinners on Wednesday, November 23. You can order up until Monday the 21st and can then pick up your dinners on Wednesday between 2 and 4pm, when we will close. Call us at 252-1500.

 

Here you go:

 

Fresh Herb and White Wine-roasted Turkey

(sliced breast or whole birds are both available)

 

Pan Gravy

 

Blueberry Hill Bread and Herb Stuffing

 

Mashed Red Skin Potatoes with Chives

 

Green Bean Casserole with Mushrooms and Crispy Onions

(the real deal)

 

Sorghum-glazed Carrots

 

Jubilee Cranberry and Citrus Chutney

 

Marty’s Soft Dinner Rolls with Whipped Butter

 

Choice of:

Pecan Pie or Pumpkin Pie or Apple Pie

 

The price for the whole meal is 25.95 per person.

 

Brrr! Fall has hit. More like early winter, to be truthful. It’s COLD here, with spitting bits of rain and, slightly higher up, snow. My heat is on full blast now. The wood stove is going to get its turn tonight.

 

This past week was a good one. It was also a hard one. Funny how it can be both.

 

The hard part was that it was a treatment week for me, which is not fun. I feel under the weather, edgy, sad, wobbly, queasy, tired, and worn out. It’s a three day process for me. Three days of assorted treatments. Three days of trying to envision the infusions as “magic elixirs.” I try to come to work but usually end up at home, tucked under a blanket with a heating pad and mittens and my pup, trying to make the time pass.

 

This week, on Tuesday, I got a call from our local tv station, asking if I’d come talk to them about a special visitor we’d had on Monday. I was almost home when they called and was frankly getting ready to hunker down with my pup and my heating accouterments. But I sucked in my breath and agreed to come back into town. I didn’t think about what I would say, just headed back, ready to answer Russ’s questions.

 

The special visitor was Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Congresswoman who’d been shot in that horrific accident a number of months ago. It turned out that she had had lunch at my café on Monday. And as it had turned out, I had been in my Monday treatment while she was having lunch. Emily had called me to tell me that the congresswoman – and her Astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, were having lunch. To me, in the middle of my treatment, it was a big boost. There I was and there she was. I, I hope, am getting better. She is too, but hers is a much more visible challenge. Thinking of her and of what she is enduring helped me.

 

So when Russ called I went inside my home, said hello to my pup, went back out, got back in my car and drove back downtown to meet him and talk about having a real live heroine here in the cafe. But Russ steered the interview to me and to my current scene, which was not what I was expecting. And though I’ve been pretty open about what is going on with me, I have not exactly talked on tv about it.

 

But there it was, me sitting at the table where these heroes sat, reflecting on surviving and living a public life and finding inspiration. The next day, in treatment, the nurses flitted around, hinting that I was a celebrity (ha!) And the next day I got a note from a friend in Tuscon saying she had seen the piece on their local station. (That is where Giffords lives after all…) But still - imagine!